I agree, there is certainly a market for the tablet that keeps things possible. The iPad type device is great for consuming content, it excels here, its probably not going to be beaten (at least not any time soon). But there is a huge market waiting to be tapped outside of just consuming content, and microsoft is rightly looking at that.

Not only is a useful tablet what I'm waiting for in a consumer device (for my definitions of useful), but business will love the thing. At work we have tons of netbooks and win xp tablet-ish devices littered around the labs and I love those little fuckers. There is never going to be an iScience or iEngieneer app to do even the bog-standard things that we need the netbooks around the lab for, and if there was it would be a re-invention of the wheel that is watered down with a toy interface slapped on it.

Look at android, many of us use it because we're willing to take a hit on the UI of our phone if it means we can do more. It will happen with tablets where we can get a step less polish and a huge jump of possibility.